Essex County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Essex County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Essex County spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 146 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 39% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 11.1 minutes.

Essex County holds about 0.2% of New York's population but accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Essex County would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,816 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Essex County	17.6 min	35.1 min	146 hrs/yr	$4,540	760
New York	28.7 min	57.4 min	239 hrs/yr	$7,414	1,586
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Commute Time Map: New York Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 17.6 minutes to get to work in Essex County. That's 22% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 77% of counties in New York

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 13.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Essex County

• Car: 81.1% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 13.2%
• Walked: 4.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.8% unusually low
• Other: 0.4%
• Bicycle: 0.3% unusually low
• Taxi: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Essex County, versus 0.1% in New York.

Driving is 48% more common in Essex County than the New York average (81.1% vs 55.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Essex County: 27.5 times less than the New York average (0.8% vs 21.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Essex County: 3.7 times less than the New York average (0.2% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Essex County: 3.1 times less than the New York average (0.3% vs 0.8%).

Commute Mode Trends in Essex County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Essex County get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Other
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	84.1%	7.0%	6.0%	0.5%	2.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	84.6%	7.0%	5.4%	0.4%	1.9%	0.2%	0.6%	0.1%
2011	84.8%	5.9%	5.8%	0.4%	2.1%	0.2%	0.7%	0.2%
2012	85.4%	4.9%	5.4%	0.6%	2.6%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%
2013	85.3%	5.2%	5.3%	0.5%	2.4%	0.3%	0.5%	0.4%
2014	86.4%	4.9%	4.2%	0.7%	2.8%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%
2015	86.2%	5.3%	4.1%	0.7%	3.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2016	87.4%	5.5%	2.7%	0.7%	3.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	88.2%	6.1%	2.7%	0.4%	2.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	87.5%	6.2%	3.0%	0.5%	1.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	86.7%	7.1%	3.6%	0.4%	1.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	86.5%	8.1%	3.3%	0.4%	0.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	85.1%	8.9%	4.4%	0.4%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	84.0%	9.9%	4.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	83.4%	11.0%	4.3%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	81.1%	13.2%	4.0%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2017 at 88.2%. Overall it fell from 84.1% in 2009 to 81.1% in 2024, down 3.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Essex County: its share of workers rose from 7.0% in 2009 to 13.2% in 2024, up 6.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 6.0% to 4.0% of workers (down 2.0 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Essex County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Essex County?

The bars show when commuters in Essex County leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show New York for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Essex County3.8% New York3.9%	3.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Essex County3.8% New York2.9%	3.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Essex County8.2% New York3.7%	8.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Essex County6.5% New York7.5%	6.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Essex County11.5% New York8.1%	11.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Essex County13.2% New York13.9%	13.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Essex County16.8% New York11.1%	16.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Essex County10.1% New York14.0%	10.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Essex County6.1% New York7.7%	6.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Essex County4.7% New York9.5%	4.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Essex County2.8% New York3.7%	2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Essex County1.5% New York1.7%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Essex County6.0% New York6.9%	6.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Essex County5.1% New York5.3%	5.1%

Essex County New York Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Essex County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.1% across New York. Early starts are more common than in New York: 15.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New York: 51.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.0%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Essex County, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Essex County Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Essex County next to New York and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

• Essex County
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Essex County	New York	United States
2009	7:40 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:38 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:41 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:35 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:31 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:33 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:34 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:35 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:34 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:36 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:34 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:35 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Essex County were on the road by 7:35 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:40 AM). That goes against the trend across New York, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Essex County now leave 2 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Essex County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Essex County's commute time compare?

Metric	Essex County	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.6 min	28.7 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	13.2%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	4.0%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.8%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Essex County is 17.6 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.8% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 4.0% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau